Chapter 140: Harmony but Difference

The more officials who fail the performance evaluation, the greater the resistance to the performance evaluation system.

Now we can see just from the surface how great the resistance to the performance evaluation system is.

No wonder they launched a counterattack as soon as Zhang Juzheng died.

Because there were too many unqualified candidates, Zhu Yijun had to carefully select two typical ones.

Tu Xiying, a fourth-rank official and one of the Nine Minor Ministers, and Zhao Zhigao, the first minister in history and a descendant of the School of Mind and an editor of the Imperial Academy.

It is neither too high nor too low, the fault is not too serious, but at the same time it is very representative.

But apart from the typical examples, there are many people whom even the emperor cannot reprimand directly.

In order to maintain political stability, it could only be expressed in a tactful way.

For example, while rewarding Wang Xijue, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Justice of Southern Zhili, he deliberately compared him with the Ministry of Justice of Northern Zhili, in order to warn the Minister of Justice Wang Zhigao, whom he could not reprimand in person.

For example, the reason why Wang Yongji of the Ministry of Revenue was rewarded was that he dug up the secrets of the Shenjie Treasury of the Ministry of Works. Naturally, this was to remind Liu Guangji, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works, who was in charge of the Shenjie Treasury, that he did not have to wait until the end of this year to retire, and he could leave earlier.

In your Ming Dynasty court, there are too many people who hold high positions but do nothing.

Otherwise, why would Wu Zhongxing and others not even curry favor with the Prime Minister, but instead try to win the favor of court officials by attacking the examination system?
It was precisely because the opposition voices were so loud at one point that Zhu Yijun inspected the Ministry of Personnel after dealing with the incident of Fuque.

It is to provide support for this round of performance evaluation.

Likewise, simply reprimanding the opposition is not enough.

A policy cannot last long without firm supporters.

So after Zhu Yijun put on some pretense in the Ministry of Personnel, he began to show up in various major government offices and make his mark.

Distribute reward money.

Promotion in rank.

Praise and bestow a name.

Especially for officials of poor family background, such as Wang Yongji, Zhu Yijun kept promising that the performance evaluation system would be open and transparent and that promotions would be based on evidence.

With this combination of official position, benefits, fame and future, not only himself but also many of his colleagues are jealous.

Zhu Yijun and his entourage slowly walked out of the Ministry of Works.

Just as he was thinking about the next candidate.

Zhang Juzheng's voice suddenly rang in my ears.

"Your Majesty, I have something to report."

Zhu Yijun turned around curiously.

Zhang Juzheng looked serious and bowed to him.

Seeing how serious he was, Zhu Yijun couldn't help but frown: "Sir, please speak."

The eunuch beside him tactfully stood away.

Only two assistant ministers were left, one on the left and one on the right, surrounding the emperor and walking slowly in the Thousand-Step Corridor.

It is already dusk.

The setting sun stretched the shadows of the three people extremely long, shining on the clean Qianbu Corridor, facing Chengtian Gate and with their backs to Daming Gate.

Li Deyou, who was following behind the emperor, suddenly came up to Wu Zhongxing.

He whispered, "Zidao, I happen to be good at painting. Seeing this scene inspired me and I was about to go back and paint it. Zidao's calligraphy is beautiful, could you write a preface for me?"

Wu Zhongxing was in a daze and was startled when he heard this.

He immediately realized that Li Deyou was trying to pull him in to please the emperor - just now only he and Zhao Yongxian, as disciples of Zhang Juzheng, were awarded the title of Zhongshu Sheren, and outsiders had no chance of pleasing the emperor.

There was no reason for him to refuse.

Wu Zhongxing glanced at the emperor and his two assistants walking side by side, and immediately turned back and smiled: "Thank you for your kindness, you and I can draw it overnight. I will be on duty at the Wanshou Palace tomorrow, and then I can present it to Your Majesty."

Hearing this, Li Deyou held Wu Zhongxing's hand emotionally and said, "If you and I had finished the painting earlier, we could have slept with our feet touching."

In fact, Mr. Li was not so clever at first.

He not only knelt down in the palace to seek fame, but also painted paintings to flatter others.

There is no way. Ever since that crazy student from the Taizhou School came to Beijing last year, he has often spread rumors in the city about how women have suffered such and such injustices.

This caused his wife in Chengdu to behave strangely, and she looked at him in a stern manner all day long, saying that he owed her a dream of becoming a cabinet wife.

As a last resort, Li Deyou had to seek personal gain.

After hearing what Li Deyou said, Wu Zhongxing couldn't help but smile.

It's all in it.

At the same time, Zhang Juzheng, who was walking in front, was still talking to the emperor about serious matters: "… the saints and sages taught us with classics, and the country used classics to train people. If you can understand the classics, you will be able to understand knowledge. Why do we need to set up different schools and gather parties to talk nonsense?"

"I think that if the lectures are not banned, it will only lead to the emergence of people who interfere with the right and wrong!"

"Therefore, we should destroy their academy and cut off their roots!"

The voice just fell.

Gao Yi, who was standing beside Zhu Yijun, suddenly changed color and said in a lost voice: "Your Majesty, you can't do that!"

He almost thought Zhang Juzheng was talking nonsense!

Destroy the academy!
If this were to happen, your spine would be broken!

During the Longqing period, when Zhang Juzheng and Gao Gongjin were giving lectures, they both "hated lecturing the most and spoke with great anger", and they also wished that academies could be "turned into government offices".

Fortunately, the late emperor was sober at that time and only banned lectures instead of listening to them to destroy the academy and turn it into a school.

Now that the old matter was brought up again, Gao Yi was afraid that the emperor had been bewitched.

Zhu Yijun couldn't help but twitch his eyelids.

Yuanfu, you are too radical!

Why does Zhang Juzheng have such a bad reputation?

Not least because this guy has done this before in history!
At that time, Zhang Juzheng issued an edict to destroy all non-official academies in the world, and to convert all 64 academies below Yingtian Prefecture into public offices, on the grounds that "there are too many disciples, they are doing things in different directions, which shake the court and confuse the name and reality."

This practice once made Zhang Juzheng's reputation almost as great as Wei Zhongxian's.

Now Zhang Juzheng probably realized that he also had some aversion to these officials who gave lectures, so he struck while the iron was hot and wanted to achieve his goal in one go.

But Zhu Yijun was not willing to do that.

After Gao Yi spoke out to stop him, Zhu Yijun also hurriedly advised: "Teacher once warned me with the Emperor's Illustrated Book that political affairs should be handled slowly and not in a hurry."

"Does this gentleman intend to test me?"

"When the academies were destroyed in the 17th year of Jiajing, 'Emperor Shizong tried his best to ban it, but it could not be stopped', and at one point 'the officials banned it, and the people ran it'."

"Is it possible to destroy the academy by giving lectures?"

Although he also disliked officials like Tu Xiying and Zhao Zhigao who lectured all day long.

But it didn't reach the point of destroying the academy.

This is extremely politically incorrect. If we do it anyway, I don't know how many people will become alienated.

When Zhang Juzheng saw that the emperor and Gao Yi opposed it at the same time, he couldn't help but look disappointed.

But he still tried to persuade her: "Your Majesty, now each provincial government has a provincial school, and the two capitals have an Imperial Academy."

"Since we already have government schools, how can we allow private schools to spread and proliferate?"

"They summoned those who were idle and immoral to create false and heretical teachings and attack each other. As long as the academy did not stop them, the lectures would not stop."

"Why should we be afraid to do something because of the difficulties?"

In Zhang Juzheng's view, there is nothing wrong with either Cheng-Zhu or Wang-Xue.

The problem is that there are too many disciples chanting the scriptures, and a good doctrine can develop into more than a dozen schools.

When there are many schools of thought, all kinds of messy remarks will emerge.

If they continue to criticize each other, won't they be able to spread rumors and mislead the public everywhere?

If we don’t deal with the root causes, how can we ever eliminate people like Zhao Zhigao and Tu Xiying?
Now, for two consecutive years, the top scholar has been this kind of person who teaches and socializes. Isn’t that enough to prove the point?

Gao Yi at the side forced a smile and said soothingly: "Yuan Fu is wrong. It is easy to destroy the academy, but it is difficult for people to keep silent."

“I’m afraid it will backfire.”

Zhang Juzheng was displeased and was about to refute.

At this time, Zhu Yijun suddenly said in a serious tone: "Sir, the common people have no worries about food and clothing, so they have time to listen to all kinds of fallacies and heresies of their kind. Otherwise, they would listen to the teachings of the White Lotus and learn the magic of the Five Pecks of Rice."

"That's a good thing."

"As for the Cheng-Zhu and Wang-Xuan schools of thought, they were different in different times and gradually gave rise to heresy..."

"This is inevitable. Even Confucius' Confucianism has its own characteristics. How can we go against the trend?"

"The ban on officials giving lectures is only to prevent those who are clique-seeking and not doing their jobs properly. What's wrong with ordinary people giving lectures?"

"If the words are a crime, the law will handle it. If it is innocent, how can you slander it so much just because you disagree with the words?"

"Prince, I cannot agree to your request to destroy all the academies in the world."

Zhu Yijun understood Zhang Juzheng.

Nowadays, there are too many people who engage in politics by giving lectures.

Xu Jie and Li Chunfang in the past, Wang Shizhen and Zhao Zhigao today, and even the Donglin Party in the future, are all like this.

If it is not curbed, people will form associations, form alliances in the opposition and interfere in political affairs.

When it developed to its peak, it was like the Fushe Society in the late Ming Dynasty.

At the command, tens of thousands of scholars gathered.

The imperial examinations were secretly controlled by the Fushe Society, and who would win the first place, who would come first, and who would come last, were all decided by the Fushe Society. Even the chief minister was obedient, and a piece of paper was passed to them to decide who would be promoted or demoted, with no error at all.

The leader of the alliance, Zhang Pu, was even known as the folk emperor!

But even so, Zhu Yijun refused.

He also cannot easily use his visible big hand to physically suppress and erase various schools of thought in order to curb illegal organizations among the people.

Although today's university schools are shabby and meaningless.

But this kind of environment where a hundred flowers bloom is rare.

You know, under today's endogenous system, it is not easy to carry out philosophical self-renewal.

There's always some good stuff coming out.

For example, being able to pull the emperor's political legitimacy to the power and responsibility of governing the people is almost a groundbreaking view - "Heaven entrusts the throne to the emperor. How can it be favored to only one person because of his high status and wealth? It is entrusted with the lives of hundreds of millions of people and makes him govern them. That is why he is called the Son of Heaven, which means 'the emperor on behalf of the people'."

At this point, the supreme divine right of kings has been quietly replaced by the power of the people with equal responsibilities.

Who says that democracy based on people’s wisdom cannot be born in an endogenous environment?
If it weren't for the wild boar skin, the outcome of the global war would be unpredictable.

Precisely because of this rare and precious seedling, which is now growing naturally and showing some initial shape, Zhu Yijun has never thought of using brutal means against it.

Even if they wanted to reform Confucian classics, they would call in Wang Shizhen and prepare him to debate the classics and engage in a serious spiritual confrontation.

How could we fail now and destroy the academy?

Therefore, Zhu Yijun seriously rejected Zhang Juzheng's proposal this time.

Zhang Juzheng looked at the emperor seriously.

The emperor did not interfere in cabinet affairs for a time. As the chief minister, he was deeply trusted and almost held all the power.

But at this moment, I suddenly realized what it felt like to disagree with the emperor.

It feels weird.

She felt unhappy about being contradicted, but also pleased that the emperor was in charge, as well as a little uneasiness about not being able to control things.

Zhang Juzheng did not answer for a while.

He looked back at Li Baiyang who was following behind him, and then looked at the emperor's figure.

I suddenly felt something in my heart - the emperor has grown taller.

Zhang Juzheng had a lot of reasons in his mind, but he swallowed them all when they came to his lips.

He just sighed and said, "Your Majesty, what you said makes sense, but I'm afraid they will use this as an excuse to slander the government."

"Once the examination is carried out and the land is measured, I am afraid there will be a big mess."

Once the pilot program of the performance evaluation system is completed here, it will be rolled out to half of the Ming Dynasty.

The matter of measuring the land will take another three or four years at most.

I don’t know how big of a mess this will cause.

If we don't eliminate the opponents now before they form alliances, it will be difficult to deal with them once they form alliances and become a powerful force.

Zhu Yijun shook his head and said confidently: "Sir, as long as we don't make a mess, nothing serious will happen."

After he finished speaking, he paused and repeated, "Let people talk, and the sky won't fall."

Zhang Juzheng obviously didn't agree, but he just shook his head and said nothing more.

……

"His Majesty."

"His Majesty."

The Hanlin Academy is not very big, after all, it was rebuilt on the site of the old Honglu Temple.

In addition to the Wenhan, Wenshi and Hongwen academies, there is only the Hanlin Academy in the center.

Zhu Yijun stood in the courtyard, waking up all the scholars and Hanlin scholars, while looking around the Hanlin Academy.

Wang Xilie, the head of the Imperial Academy, accompanied him and bowed to introduce him, "Your Majesty, the Wenhan Academy is home to the Imperial Reader, Imperial Lecturer, Imperial Bookkeeper, Doctor of the Five Classics, and Imperial Library."

"The Museum of Literature and History is used for writing, editing, and reviewing..."

Zhu Yijun didn't even listen to the introduction of Wang Xilie, who was in charge of the Hanlin Academy.

His eyes only fell on Wang Jiaping.

He stretched out his hand and beckoned: "My Lord, come closer to me."

Wang Xilie was introducing everyone and was about to walk up to the emperor when he heard this.

When he looked up, he saw the emperor waving at Wang Jiaping. He paused in embarrassment, touching his face and pointing around.

Wang Jiaping had an expressionless face. He walked past his colleagues, came before the emperor, and performed a full salute in a serious manner.

"I, the Imperial Academy Editor Wang Jiaping, pay my respects to Your Majesty."

Zhu Yijun stepped forward and reached out to help the man up.

He held Wang Jiaping's hand and looked around at the Shujishi and Hanlin scholars: "The Hanlin Academy is a place where talents are stored in the imperial court. It is a gathering place for all the heroes, and no one lags behind in anything."

"Since the self-examination method was introduced, many people have been outstanding, but none of them is as outstanding as Wang Qing."

"In the past year since the examination, Wang Qing has been compiling the Records of the Two Dynasties. Not only has he made far more progress, but he has also been able to polish the text and maintain integrity without flattery."

"Last year, I drafted the 'Posthumous Title of Empress Xiaoyi', 'Posthumous Title of the Holy Mother', 'Posthumous Title of the Holy Mother', 'Posthumous Title of the Benevolent and Holy Empress Dowager', and 'Posthumous Title of the Cisheng Empress Dowager'. Every word is precious and every sentence is sincere."

"After that, he taught in the inner hall, working diligently and conscientiously. All the students praised him and called him their teacher."

"At the beginning of the year, when we entered Shu to confer the title of Prince, all the ministers were silent, but Wang Qing stepped forward."

"After the autumn lecture, Wang Qing was appointed as the lecturer. He worked day and night to prepare for my lectures. He was meticulous and his lectures were meaningful..."

Zhu Yijun was generous in his praise and his expression was full of admiration, praising Wang Jiaping to the sky.

I don’t know how many people are jealous of this scene.

The emperor specially ran to the yamen, held his hand and praised him personally. All the scholars and imperial academies were extremely envious and wished they could take his place!
After this experience, Wang Jiaping’s future is probably limitless!
Hanlin, who found it difficult to accept that others had what he did not, had a look of jealousy in his eyes.

Zhu Yijun took in all these expressions.

Of course he knew that his behavior was somewhat exaggerated.

After all, there are many people who have excellent test scores, and there may be some who have done better than Wang Jiaping.

But, politics.

It is to set an example.

Just by saying that only Hanlin scholars could be selected into the cabinet, Wang Jiaping won over many of the people below.

In addition, he came from a humble background, having been a farmer and student, making him the most suitable person to support the career path system - you see, working hard at your post has more prospects than going around giving lectures and building connections.

Of course, all of this is inseparable from Wang Jiaping's loyalty and talent, which earned him this opportunity.

After Zhu Yijun finished speaking, he let go of Wang Jiaping's hand.

Let them express their gratitude and bow.

Seeing that the emperor finally let go of his hand, Wang Jiaping immediately bowed and said respectfully: "Your Majesty, what you said is all within my responsibility, and I do not deserve your praise."

"Besides, I sleep well every day, eat frequently, and never neglect sleep or food."

After Wang Jiaping finished speaking, everyone on the field looked strange.

Zhu Yijun's smiling face seemed a little awkward for a moment.

well.

You are worthy of being called a decent person. You are still so decent even now.

Zhu Yijun couldn't help but feel resentful in his heart.

Forget it. It’s also my fault that I didn’t anticipate that this guy wouldn’t cooperate with the performance, so I overacted.

He also knew that Wang Jiaping had not been a very good person in history.

When Gao Gong was the chief minister, he refuted Gao Gong; when his teacher Zhang Juzheng was the chief minister, he offended Zhang Juzheng; when his student Wanli was in power, he defied Wanli.

He had extremely good resources, but ended up resigning in anger.

But he is also a straight man who doesn't pretend.

Thinking of this, Zhu Yijun laughed and waved his hands: "I exaggerated my words."

"Anyway, I have no choice but to reward you."

He looked at Zhang Juzheng behind him and asked, "Prime Minister, is there a suitable position to be filled in Zuo Chunfang?"

There was a public discussion before coming here, so naturally there is nothing much to say.

Zhang Juzheng pretended to ponder for a moment, then replied, "Your Majesty, there is still a vacancy for Zuo Yude in Zuo Chunfang."

Zuo Chunfang Zuo Yude was of the fifth rank and had always been a fast track to promotion for Hanlin.

Zhu Yijun nodded and smiled at Wang Jiaping, "Mr. Wang, please report to Zuo Chunfang tomorrow."

After saying that, he didn't wait for Wang Jiaping to speak.

He once again looked around at all the scholars and Hanlin scholars, and said seriously: "When the imperial court recruits people, all the ministers should take Wang Qing as an example, and I will definitely treat him well!"

After that, he personally awarded silver, wrote the four characters "Yi De Zhong He" (One Virtue, One Heart) and gave it to Wang Jiaping.

After a set of procedures is completed.

Only then did Zhu Yijun leave the Hanlin Academy surrounded by the crowd.

A group of Shujishi and Hanlin bowed and saw him off with complicated expressions.

(End of this chapter)